


Advisor Capacity

by nerdsherpa



Series: A Hole in the Roof: Haleth Lavellan/Commander Cullen [2]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dalish Elves, Dragon Age Quest: Before the Dawn, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Lyrium Withdrawal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-09 18:55:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5551499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdsherpa/pseuds/nerdsherpa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cullen is reluctant to allow Lavellan to care for him as he recovers from his addiction. Even an advisor needs an outside perspective sometimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Advisor Capacity

**I.**

Sweaty, winded, and in a tangle of limbs, he wasn't sure he could pronounce his own name, but, Maker take him, there was obviously no better time for this.

"Haleth, _ma_ — _ma emma lath_."

A peal of laughter hadn't been exactly what he'd expected, but it had been a long time since he'd heard her sound genuinely delighted, and was happy, childishly proud, even, to have been the cause.

"Who taught you that?" she demanded, after she'd kissed him soundly on the mouth.

"Leliana. She cornered me the day after the Ball; said I would be grateful for it soon."

"Ah! That explains your Orlesian accent."

He rubbed a hand over his face. "Maker's breath. Did I at least say 'I love you?'"

She pulled his hand back and kissed it. "Of course you did, _ma'vhenan_. Well, a bit. We don't say 'I love you.' Literally translated, the phrase means 'You _are_ my love.'"

"That is certainly true." He squeezed her fingers, smiling, "What about _ma'vhenan_? You call me that so often."

"That's because," she touched his chest with their linked hands, "it means 'my heart.'"

Then it had been his turn to kiss her soundly, a process that wound up lasting some time, and so it was a while before she propped herself up on one elbow and said "Do you often discuss your feelings towards me with Leliana?"

"I've never said a single word to her about it."

"Oh. ...Hmm."

" _Indeed_."

 

**II.**

Haleth woke when Cullen began to bark desperate orders in his sleep, and she sat up just in time to catch his fist before it finished the unmistakable arc of raising a shield. He started awake and began to shiver, despite, or perhaps because of, the sheen of sweat that covered him.

"Haleth?" he rasped.

"Yes. It's alright. You're awake," she murmured as she smoothed his hair back. "Gods above, Cullen, you feel feverish."

He passed a shaking hand in front of his eyes, blinking. "Maker's bloody _balls_." She helped him sit up and swing his legs off the bed, an action followed by what seemed like an attack of vertigo, at least by the way he gripped the edge of the mattress with both hands. "I'm going to be insufferable for most of the night. It's the lyrium. Or it's not the lyrium. You know what I mean. Happens every now and then. Less now. More then."

"Let me help," she stopped him as he fumbled towards the bedside table.

"Vial. In the drawer."

The milky liquid, stoppered with Vivienne's mark in the wax seal, smelled of elfroot. "This helps you sleep?"

He swallowed a mouthful before answering, and just a bit of tension went out of his shoulders. "Not at all," he laughed, mirthlessly, "but it'll make tomorrow livable."

Her hand fell tentatively onto his skin, and then began to stroke his back. "Are you going to drink more of it?"

"Yes. If I drink it too fast on an empty stomach, I'll just retch it back up."

"How can I help?"

Cullen gave her a smile that was mostly wince. "You should go back to your room."

"I don't understand."

"Haleth, I'm going to spend the rest of the night considering bodily dismemberment as a pleasant alternative to pain, and this draught is going to leave me so nauseous I won't be able to move."

"And you want me… to leave you alone?"

"I'll be fine. You're leaving for the quarry in Emprise du Lion tomorrow, you should get the sleep you can."

"You're… sure."

"Yes, love." The kiss he gave her was cut short to a peck by the first swell of pain behind his eyes and deep in his gut. But it must have been alright, because she dressed, gave him a gentle farewell embrace, and left. And that was right, he thought, taking his second swallow from the vial and feeling his stomach begin to churn. She didn't need this.

 

**III.**

"Well. Are you going to tell me why you throw Lavellan out of your bed every time you have a fit of withdrawal?"

In the time it took Cassandra to cross the room he'd made a short list of reasons why she might be stomping into his office, but it definitely had not included this, and so it took him a moment to pick his jaw up and respond.

"Pardon?"

"I _said_ —"

"I know what you said! How do you _know_? Doesn't anyone have any secrets in this blighted castle?"

Cassandra crossed her arms and made a disgusted sound. "You and I both know better than that. Leliana's agents noticed. She deduced the correlation. She told Josephine, because they are inveterate gossipers. And because _Josephine_ is a woman with more sense in her head than secrets, she finally told _me_."

Cullen scowled and turned back to Dagna's report on Samson. "I still fail to see what makes it the concern of any of you."

"Did you or did you not request that I monitor the progress of your recovery?"

"Alright, then! Yes, I'm still having the fits every few weeks. The symptoms are the same."

"That is _not_ what I asked," Cassandra said, gently laying her knuckles on his desk with all the threat of a bear dropping to four legs, somehow. Nevertheless, it was a threat he felt perfectly capable of rising to.

He set down the report. "She's the Inquisitor. She doesn't need to spend her nights caring for a sick man."

"She is a woman who _loves_ you, and she _wants_ to care for you."

"Is this about my recovery, Lady Seeker? Or my relationship?"

"Both! Is this about the good of the Inquisition? Or is it your own personal insecurities?"

"I —" Cullen realized that he was on his feet, practically snarling in Cassandra's face, and faltered. He was still too much of a Templar to refuse a Seeker's question. "I don't want to add to her responsibilities. She already has too many."

Cassandra straightened up, giving him a cold appraisal indeed. "In that case, is it not your role as advisor to allow _her_ to decide?"

"Or is it my role as her lover to shield her, where I can?" Well, if he hadn't been flushed before, he certainly was now.

Cassandra responded only with another noise of disapproval, and turned to leave. "I hope that is true, Commander," she added as she reached for the door, "Because if this is all because you're _embarrassed_ for her to see you in a vulnerable state, you are a lesser man than I had taken you for."

 

**IV.**

Cullen watched with something akin to awe as Lavellan half leapt and half clambered up a sheer stone formation, easily outpacing the seasoned Inquisition scouts in her wake. Half an hour ago and half a mile away, she'd spotted the surface vein of silverite, and since it was that time of day anyway, the party of wagons, scouts, soldiers, scribes and inner circle members was beginning the delicately orchestrated process of setting camp. He'd learned quickly that it was a task best left to those with more experience on the road, and at this point in the journey was content to spend the time someplace out of the way. If that place had an excellent view of Haleth in the coat of mail and leaf-colored leathers that constituted her traveling clothes, well, he'd found he was no longer shy about being caught in unsubtle, adoring stares.

"Curly?"

By all rights, he should have been getting tenser by the day. Tomorrow they'd have to start moving with stealth in the approach to the Temple of Dumat, on the hunt for Corypheus' most favored lieutenant. Anything could happen, but the battlefield anxieties he knew as old friends simply hadn't shown up for the job. The weather was fair, the air was fresh, their mission was backed by the best science of their pocket arcanist and Haleth...

"Curly!"

Cullen started. "Forgive me, Varric, I was somewhere else."

"Well, what I said was 'A copper for your thoughts,' but on second thought, don't tell me. The way you were looking at Lavellan, I could wind up having to give you royalties on my next installment of _Swords and Shields_."

"Hmm, too bad. I don't suppose I could interest you in likeness rights?"

Varric put on a show of considering the taller man. "I'm not so sure… I wouldn't want to get into trouble with Her Inquisitorialness, depending on what I do with you. But a new character with a facial scar that's more dashing than disfiguring could be just the thing. I'll make a note of your suggestion."

Cullen watched Haleth stretch up from a crouch and roll her shoulders loose, her footing effortlessly secure even ten yards up a rock. He could almost swear that she was...

"Varric… I know the situation is complicated, but would you say that you and Bianca are in… a long-distance relationship?"

The dwarf sighed a huge sigh. "I was really hoping that sort of thing wouldn't become common knowledge around here."

"My sympathies. As I've been reminded recently, there are no secrets in Skyhold."

"Except Skyhold itself. But if you're looking for my advice in the romance department, go ahead and ask. Maker knows my expertise with the real deal is damn limited, so at least it won't take too long to answer."

"Well, you see Bianca intermittently, and then usually for short intervals. A day or two."

"More or less."

"But you've had times when you could spend a longer stretch, maybe weeks, with her?"

Varric's habitual smirk widened. "More or less."

"When you have had more time with each other, did she seem," Cullen cleared his throat, "different?"

With no answer immediately forthcoming, he tore his gaze away from Lavellan — silhouetted against the setting sun, scanning the horizon as scouts assembled a collapsible theodolite beside her — to find Varric was regarding him thoughtfully.

"Alright," the dwarf finally said, "I heard what you said, but I think I know what you're asking, which is the more important part. This is the first time you've been around her for any extended period of time that _hasn't_ been in either Haven or Skyhold, isn't it? _Or_ the Winter Palace. That epileptic fit of pageantry doesn't count either."

Cullen frowned. "I suppose it is."

"Then I'll let you in on a little secret, Curly. She's Dalish. From the top of her tattoos right down to the bottom of her dirty soles. You're not seeing a change, you're seeing _her_.

"Sure, Skyhold's a nice sound fortification, but putting a Dalish elf in a big stone room at the top of a big stone tower in a big stone hall? Josephine should have just cordoned off the garden for her. But Ruffles has the right of it, and Haleth knows that better than any of us: the movers and shakers of Thedas will only embrace a Dalish Herald if she isn't _too_ Dalish. So she sleeps in their kind of bed, sits on their kind of throne and wears their kind of clothes. And it chafes her like a bridle on a halla.

"But out here? When you're practically the only person standing between common folk and rebel mages, red templars, mad Tevinters and darkspawn, nobody cares whether you're wearing shoes or not. Setting camp every night, breaking camp every morning, watching the landscape spread itself out for you at the top of a hill: That's Dalish as it gets. I'm a man who's happiest waking up in the back room of Kirkwall's third shittiest bar every day, and even I can _almost_ see the appeal."

Cullen felt as though he'd been sleeping and Varric had thrown open the curtain of a sunny window. Of course. She was entirely the same, the only difference was context. Her posture, which always seemed poised for flight in the Keep, now looked ready to leap. The affectionate touches, the physical closeness she reserved for private moments, were gifts he'd been unconsciously receiving around a communal campfire all week. Despite the long bow and full quiver on her shoulders, she stood taller out here, smiled easier, gave orders without the dry air of solemnity lent by a hall full of murals and drapery. Here, the mantle of Inquisitor fit her like a second skin rather than a poorly matched corset.

"Tell me, Varric, do you prepare these speeches beforehand or do you really do this off the cuff?"

That elicited a chuckle. "I like to think I've found a way around the whole 'dwarves can't do magic' thing."

"Thank you. I don't know how I didn't see this before."

"It's because you're a bit of an idiot. But don't worry: She likes that." The dwarf reached up as high as he could and clapped him in the middle of his back, "Whatever you do, don't get your ceiling fixed. It's good for her." He wandered off muttering, not unhappily, "Who advises the advisors? Me, apparently."

 

**V.**

He never should have come. What had possessed him to think that this would be the end of things? How could he have ever possibly thought that this would work out? Of _course_ , Samson was gone. Of _course_ , he'd gotten wind of their movements. Of _course_ , they'd come prepared with the best intelligence, whittled away at his lyrium supply, and poured their best researchers into finding his weaknesses — and for what? A score of mindless monsters who were once men, left as living decoys, a dying tranquil mage... and red lyrium. _So_ much red lyrium. He'd read the reports, he thought he'd been prepared, but when he had glanced up and realized that the formations were even growing out of the ceiling he'd almost lost his nerve.

Commander Cullen, hands shaking on his hilt like an unbloodied recruit. None of the Inquisition's reports had been written by Templars. None of them had mentioned the singing. Is this what Meredith had heard, all the time? The quiet, unrepeatable melody he couldn't _not_ sense from the stones, simple for him to resist but a constant reminder that there would _always_ be reminders of what he'd once been. Even now, a league from the distant temple, he could feel the direction of it like an icy breeze on bare skin. Why had he come?

"I said not _now_ , Lieutenant!" he growled as the shadow of the tent flap shifted, but it was Haleth who stepped through.

He winced, "I'm sorr—"

"Shh." Gently, she unknotted one of his fists and laced her fingers with his, laying her other hand on his cheek. "Look at me, Cullen." He obeyed. "Believe this." She waited for him to take a breath and let it out. "You aren't going to become like Samson."

He pulled her to him so quickly that she lost her footing, but his arms were around her so fast it never mattered. He felt her reach up to stroke the short hair at the nape of his neck, and knew he could count on her to never mention the pricking of two hot tears on her skin.

"Maker's breath, _ma emma lath_ so much," he said, after a great, unsteady breath, teasing a laugh from her. He eventually straightened to look at her face. "Haleth. Tonight… will be bad for me."

"Oh." The wry smile fell.

He made a mental note to kick himself a few more times. "Would you stay with me? I mean—" _Come on, man, say the whole truth._ "I _want_ you to stay with me. I want very much for you to stay with me." His voice fell to a hoarse whisper, "I've always wanted that."

She cupped his face in her hands, eyes shining. "You only had to ask."

"That's why I haven't. I wanted to be your refuge. One thing you didn't have to worry about."

"You _are_. But that doesn't mean I can't be yours. I should have pressed you, I _wanted_ to, but… I didn't want to argue. I didn't want to find a problem we couldn't fix. We get so little time together." One corner of her mouth twitched. "So I took the cowardly route and asked Cassandra about it."

"She told me Josephine and Leliana told her about it!"

"Well, that's a rather creative solution, given that I made her swear not to tell you _I_ told her."

The laughter loosened their embrace, as well as the knot he'd carried in his stomach all day. She put her hand on his chest, over his heart. "What do you need tonight, _ma'vhenan_?

"I don't know, I've never done this with someone else." He put his own hand over hers, rubbing her knuckles with his thumb. "I'll eat now and take one of Vivienne's draughts. After that…"

"After that we'll work it out together."

 

**VI.**

They tried lying down together, sitting up, and even putting his head in her lap, but the position that seemed to work best was for Haleth to sit while he lay curled around her on his side. While his right arm pressed against his stomach, his left clutched her hand to his chest, and she used her free fingers to stroke his hair as he shivered, sweated and softly groaned his way in and out of dreams.

Cullen was driven by unseen foes towards the source of the tuneless red lyrium melody, but just when he found himself entirely paralyzed by the decision between wolves, or demons, or darkspawn and the thing he feared most in the waking world, a new song replaced the old. He woke to realize that Haleth was singing to him. Then he remembered that his body was wracked by pain, and that this had already happened to him a number of times that he had forgotten to count. After a moment, his eyelids were simply too heavy to keep open, and he drifted into the dream again.

Haleth had started with every lullaby she knew, then moved on to simply any quiet melody, realizing that since he only spoke four words of Elvhen anyway he wouldn't be able to tell the difference. She'd even sung the wordless [_Song for the Blighted_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoSWam15z5k) as best she could. Eventually there was only one more thing she could think of to sing. To _hum_ , really.

Cullen blinked slowly awake, taking stock of his body. It seemed to be offering only a token resistance now, rather than outright rebellion. Haleth was still singing, and for a moment he wasn't sure what. Then, between a few hummed phrases, she murmured " _steel your heart, the dawn will come_." She was singing _The Dawn Will Come_ , even though she only had seven words of it, the only song from his traditions that she knew.

He thought it was the sweetest thing he'd ever heard.

He gave her fingers a gentle squeeze. It was wholly inadequate to convey the depth of his feelings, but it would have to do for now. She stopped humming and bent to kiss his forehead. "Feeling any better?"

"The worst is over," he croaked, before clearing his throat. "Lie down? I want to hold you."

She settled in with her head beneath his chin, pulling his arms around her — a helpful courtesy that he was genuinely grateful for in his current state — and pressing her face into his chest. "Did I help?"

"Much more than you know. Did I worry you?"

"No," she said.

"Yes," she said, "of course you did. Tell me you're going to be all right."

"I'm going to be fine."

"Is that your _formal_ report, Commander?"

"Forgive me, my Lady Inquisitor." He cleared his throat again. "I will be fit for duty by dawn, and fully recovered by tomorrow. The fits grow further and further apart every time, when they are not triggered by the presence of entirely excessive amounts of red lyrium, such as those the Inquisition found in the Temple of Dumat."

She took a breath, let it out, and nodded. "I believe you." She wrapped an arm around him to pull herself closer. " _Ma emma vhenan_ , Cullen."

He filled his lungs with the leaf smell of her hair and sighed it back out. " _Ma emma lath_ , Haleth."


End file.
